Conference Report

Report on the 53rd Spring Meeting (2006) ofThe Japan Society of Applied Physics and Related Societies
Hideomi Ohnishi*
Annual Meeting Committee Chairman

The 53rd Annual JSAP Meeting was held over five days, from March
22 (Wednesday) to 26 (Sunday), 2006, at the Setagaya Campus of theMusashi Institute of Technology (in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo). It was raining
from the evening of the first day, on the 22nd, to the morning of the 23rd,
but the weather was clear through most of the meeting, and the lectures
were concluded without major incident.
This year’s Local Executive Committee, which was comprised of amixed team from the Musashi Institute of Technology and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, made valuable contributions to the preparations forthe meeting. We would like to thank all of the members of the Local Executive Committee for their efforts, but particularly Professor Shunri Odaof the Tokyo Institute of Technology, who acted as Chairman of the Local
Executive Committee, and the Vice Chairman, Prof. Takuya Maruizumi ofthe Musashi Institute of Technology, as well as Prof. Hiroshi Hirano, also
from the Musashi Institute of Technology, who was in charge of administration for the Local Executive Committee. We are particularly indebtedto Hideo Nakamura, President of the Musashi Institute of Technology;
Prof. Hiroshi Ishiwara, Head of the Interdisciplinary Graduate School ofScience and Engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology; YoshihikoHagiwara, Vice President of the Musashi Institute of Technology; Prof.
Yasuhiro Shiraki, Director of the Musashi Institute of Technology Advanced
Research Laboratories; and the administrative staff of the Musashi Institute of Technology. We would like to take this opportunity to express ourdeep appreciation for their efforts.
At this Meeting, there were a total of 4,601 presentations of research
results, including 4,028 regular lectures and 573 symposiums and othertopical sessions (calculated in 15-minute segments, representing the sametime allocated to regular lectures). Active discussions took place at all 38of the oral lecture and poster session venues. Incidentally, there were atotal of 4,803 presentations at the Meeting held at Saitama University
last spring, including 4,157 regular lectures and 646 symposiums andother topical sessions. Figure 1 shows the distribution of presentations ineach Main Classification, including the relevant joint sessions. When wereceived papers in electronic format, we requested that the presentersindicate which of four key fields that paper was most closely related to.
The results are as follows: Nanotechnology: 1,780; Information Technology: 448; Biotechnology: 140; and the Environment: 140. Thus, oneof the most notable features of JSAP is that papers related to Nanotechnology accounted for more than 40% of the total, and that the papers
are distributed across a wide range of classifications.
Figure 2 illustrates the yearly trends in the number of presentations and registered participants. There are a number of reasons for thechanges in the number of presentations and participants, including theMeeting location and dates, and conflicts with international conferences
held by other academic societies. This spring, the Institute of Electronics,
Information and Communication Engineers (IEICE) held a conference fromMarch 24 to 27, and the Physical Society of Japan (PSJ)
from March 27 to 30, so we expect that these eventsaffected attendance at least to some extent.
����������������������� ����
During this year’s meeting, the “19th Scientist� ��������������������������������
�������������� ��Awards for the Presentation of an Excellent Paper”
��������������������������� �������������������������
were presented to 34 individuals selected through��� ������acareful screening process from among 575 of the���������������������������������� �������3,341 regular lectures presented at the Fall 2005
� �������������������Meeting by young researchers aged 33 years and������������������ ��under, for which applications had been received in����������������������������������������
advance. President Kenjiro Oura presented the awards� �����������������
��along with a commemorative gift, praising theseyoung researchers for their achievements and offering�������������������������� �����
words of encouragement for their future endeavors.
� ���������������������Special lectures commemorating the 34 Scientist
���Award recipients were held at the respective sessions.
�������������������������� ����������������� �����������������Commemorative lectures were also held by the�����
recipients of the 6th Japan Society of Applied Physics� ����������������������������������������� �(JSAP) Outstanding Achievement Award (for research����achievements), the 7th Optical and Quantum ElecFigure 1: Ratio of presentations in each Main Classification (including joint sessions)
tronics Achievement Award (the Hiroshi Takuma* Faculty of Engineering, Ehime University30

JSAP International No.14 (July 2006)

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Conference Report

Number of registered participants

Number of papers

Award), and the 3rd Optical and Electronic Integration Technology Achievement Award (theIzuo Hayashi Award). We would like to offer
our warm congratulations to the recipients, and5000
express our deep respect for their long years of4800
research activities.
4600
The specific events conducted through thecourse of this Meeting included: the 38th JSAP
4400
School A, which focused on the theme of “The
4200
current state of environmental technologies
4000
that utilized applied physics, and developments
for the future,” and School B, on the theme
3800
of “Introducing Standards and Fundamental
3600
Constants into Research and Education as a3400
Basis Foundation for Science and Technology”;
3200
the 2006 Symposium of the Committee for1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Manpower Training and Joint Participation byMen and Women, on “Diversity and evalua10000
tion of R&D environments — current condi9500
tions and issues in corporate research”; the9000
JJAP Friendship Meeting on “How Japanese
8500
Researchers can improve their English ResearchPapers”; and a special lecture by a representa8000
tive of the Japanese Cabinet Office on “Strate7500
gies for promoting activities in the nanotech7000nology and materials fields in the 3rd Phase of6500
the Basic Plan for Science and Technology.” We
6000
hope that these events will provide an even5500
greater impetus in the societal role of JSAP, andin the educational and research activities of its
5000
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
members.
Starting with this Spring Meeting, all
SpringYear
Fall
presentations were made using PC projectors, and many research results were presented
Figure 2: Annual movement in number of papers and number of registered participants
using video contents and other functions that
greatly increased the visibility of slides. We must
be cautious, however, and not become overly confident regarding theties for new employment, we have offered the option of including “postenvironment surrounding JSAP Meetings. We are still facing a number ofdoctoral researcher” or other identifying marks in the Lecture Program, atissues, including a drop in the number of presentations and participants
the request of the presenter in question.
by corporate researchers, and suggestions that these meetings are “a mix
We hope that these continued efforts to improve member servicesof good and bad.” As one means of increasing participation by corpoand to incorporate new activities will make these JSAP Meetings evenrate researchers, we held a symposium on the theme of “Applied Physics
more meaningful and valuable for all members in the years to come.
and Production: Aiming for Further Collaboration between JSAP and theIndustrial World.” To increase the quality of lectures and create opportuni-JSAP International No.14 (July 2006)

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